1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to computer security in general, and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for providing security management in computer systems. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a secure single sign-on to a computer system.
2. Description of Related Art
Today, in order to log on to a secured personal computer system, a computer user is required to enter a power-on password (POP) before computer boot, a hard-drive password (HDP) to allow the basic input/output system (BIOS) to boot the operating system, and an operating system password to log onto the operating system. Additionally, if the computer user uses a smart card, the computer user is also required to enter a smart card personal identification number to allow access to the protected information on the smart card after the computer user has logged on to the personal computer system. Thus, there are potentially four different passwords a computer user has to remember, which most computer users would find annoying. Besides, the likelihood of misplacing passwords is higher with more passwords.
Most computer users tend to prefer the number of passwords they need to enter for logging onto a secured personal computer system to be reduced. Almost all computer users prefer the time from a computer system being turned on to the time the computer system being ready to use to be as short as possible.
Consequently, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus for providing a secure single sign-on to a computer system.